[yellowdog-announce] Terra Soft Releases Y-HPC v1.1, Initiates Switch Campaign: Press Release 2006 03/08

[yellowdog-announce at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com]

TERRA SOFT RELEASES Y-HPC v1.1, INITIATES SWITCH CAMPAIGN

LOVELAND, Colorado - 8 March 2006 - Terra Soft Solutions, the leading 
developer of integrated Power Architecture Linux solutions today released 
v1.1 of its Y-HPC Cluster Construction & Management Suite for G5 Xserves, 
both improving the product offering and initiating a focused switch campaign.

Built against Yellow Dog Linux v4.1, Y-HPC v1.1 offers the following 
improvements over the original release:
 - Offers a YDL 4.1 node image.
 - XCPU replacement of BProc.
 - Ganglia cluster monitor.
 - TORQUE job scheduler.
 - 64-bit 2.6.15 64 kernel.
 - 64-bit GDB.
 - 64-Bit LAM, MPICH, MPICH2, and OpenMPI.
 - Updated PVFS2.
 - General improvements to the installer.

In addition, the Moab Cluster Suite(R) by Cluster Resources is now available 
from Terra Soft. Complementary to the updated TORQUE and Ganglia, Moab 
provides Users an HTML interface and Administrators a Java interface to the 
cluster applications and hardware, eliminating the complexity of management 
through a set of intuitive graphical interfaces.

New to Y-HPC v1.1 is XCPU, a process management system for clusters divided 
into control nodes and compute nodes. XCPU incorporates a set of simple tools 
for starting cluster-wide processes wherein the control nodes migrate 
execution to the compute nodes via the '9p' process management service. The 
XCPU server is 'mounted' in much the same way NFS is mounted. In this regard, 
services provided by XCPU are available as files in a file system.

Ron Minnich, Team Leader of the Cluster Research Team at Los Alamos National 
Lab states, "XCPU was co-developed by LANL and Bell Labs for the Plan 9 
operating system. A replacement and improvement over BProc, XCPU is designed 
to provide Linux clusters with a new approach to cluster job execution. Terra 
Soft's integration of XCPU into Y-HPC v1.1 demonstrates its commitment to 
pioneering new cluster software technologies for large-scale, 
mission-critical clusters."

Usually $100 per CPU, Y-HPC v1.1 is now available for a flat fee of just $650 
to those who already own an Apple G5 Xserve cluster and desire Linux as the 
primary operating system.

Kai Staats, CEO of Terra Soft Solutions, states, "Since Apple's announcement 
of their transition to Intel last summer, we have received numerous requests 
for Y-HPC for use with existing G5 Xserve clusters. However, budgets are 
tight and not everyone was able to switch. Therefore, with v1.1 we have 
reduced the barrier to entry for those who desire a Linux-based G5 Xserve 
cluster. At $650 per cluster, independent of the number of nodes, it just 
makes sense."

	To contact Terra Soft about switching to Y-HPC:
	http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/y-hpc/switch.shtml

	To purchase Y-HPC or a complete cluster:
	http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/store/

Y-HPC v1.1 is immediately available for download via YDL.net Pro accounts.


About Terra Soft Solutions, Inc.
Terra Soft is a leading Integrated Solutions Provider with proven expertise in 
the Power Architecture and Linux OS platform. As a Mercury, Apple and Genesi 
VAR, and an IBM Business Partner, Terra Soft provides turnkey and 
built-to-order portables, desktop workstations, HA servers, and HPC clusters. 
Terra Soft's Y-HPC 64-bit OS and cluster construction suite is widely 
accepted as a preferred platform for Xserve clusters.

Terra Soft's recent product launches include Y-Bio, a cross-architecture life 
sciences package; and provision of the world's first commercial Linux Board 
Support Package for the Cell processor in collaboration with Mercury 
Computer.

For more information, visit www.terrasoftsolutions.com


IBM(R), Power and Power Architecture are trademarks and/or registered 
trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. Apple and Xserve 
are registered trademarks of Apple Computer. Moab Cluster Suite is a 
trademark of Cluster Resources, Inc. Additional product and company names 
mentioned may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective 
holders.